Ambiguiphile

Oscar Wilde says that "Only the shallow know themselves" implying that those of profound mind or spirit are constantly getting to know themselves and occasionally are surprised by who they are. I agree and disagree with this.

I disagree in the absoluteness he claims for those non-shallow of us. I think you can know your tendencies and know where you'd veer in certain situations but agree with him in the respect of progress -

If you're constantly and deliberately working on your character and habits there will be times of emotional critical mass where you amaze yourself. And there are also those precious moments where you know and feel that more experienced ethereal hearts and hands are guiding your actions and/or words and you get to look back with an earnest keanuesque "woah". I live for those moments frankly. Those are they hyper drive moments of character and make for the life changing journal entries.

However I content myself with little realizations about myself more often than not and I've recently learned something about me (aside that I'm allergic to dairy). I really really love defined non-definition. I love movies with ambiguous endings. I think I love the emotional tie up but not the logistical bow.

A couple of weeks ago the movie Garden State came up between Nick and myself at the gym. Apparently Mr. Zack Braff is more than the clowny dude on Scrubs. Homey had this screenplay in his pocket since high school and soundtrack list on his iPod before they even started filming. He directed the flick as well as starred in it. That's a pretty busy Scrubs clown boy. I was impressed and I had 3 people whose music sensibilities I implicitly trust recommend the soundtrack and that loved it without even seeing the movie. Holy cow. How many movies do you know whose soundtrack is so good it stands independently on its own? Think hard - I did and I didn't come up with many. So the DVD was on the $5 special at Target so I picked it up and I watched it for the first time last week. Holy. Freaking. Cow.

Awesome Flick

But not awesome in the LOTR of Transformers kind of way. Awesome in that it totally didn't resolve much of anything in this sad and angst filled life of a New Jersey boy except that he made one good choice out of a bunch of bad ones and it ends with him saying "what do you say here?" and it kind of faded into this marvelous Frou Frou song Let Go and I literally found myself more moved than I had been in months. I mean usually movies make you feel something during them and then they wrap it up nicely and you leave the theater all ready to face life after a brief brain vacation. But there are others that you feel this explosion of emotion, not in the middle but when its done. Then I reflected back to the last time I felt so much at the end of a movie and it was at the end of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where they say "What do we do now?" "I don't know". They just know they're in love and they know its not going to be perfect and that they were OK with that. It's this totally ambiguous ending.

And I've recently learned that I LOVE IT. When it's done right. If its like The Fountain - never freaking mind, I'd rather chew glass than try to get my head around that strange space. But I can't even begin to tell you how refreshed and validated I feel about all of the undefined aspects in my own life after seeing this movie. Maybe its because my life is so full of things and people that my head doesn't completely understand but my heart does or if I just love the space that movies like that give me to get lost in my head on my way back to my car and construct the sequel. But either way they teach me something about me, like all good art should. And for that I am grateful. I know myself just a little bit better than I did yesterday and its pretty good to meet me.

Even if its piece by piece.